FASHION IN REAL TIME

Covering news in real time couldn’t have been better tested than during Fashion Week in New York City. Filling the rows along side esteemed fashion journalists, editors and buyers were bloggers.  And, using pen and paper to editorialize the latest garments to hit the runway –that will eventually hit retail stores globally– was one-upped by camera phone photos with direct uploading capability to the Web.

With hundreds of fashion blogs craving content on what’s to come, bloggers and journos alike were transmitting looks as they came down the runway. As a hired gun for  the Style File Group, I shot full-on packages with a Flipcam. Quick time videos replaced tapes and P2 cards used in traditional over-the-shoulder cameras. With a light weight tripod (that fit in my everyday, oversized-handbag) and the palm-sized camera I could sit front row with an up-close view, far from the anthill of camera people.

The video I shot could be uploaded using any laptop or computer, which I later accessed when time to edit. As we’ve all become part of the Youtube generation, we are much more forgiving of video and sound that doesn’t look studio shot.

It’s my contention that as goes fashion coverage so to will go hard news. What do you think?

Fashion, is it need or necessity? Many would say it’s a bit of both. And, the degree to which we use clothes for coverage versus artistic statement is entirely individual. Some are slaves to trends, others are tied to tried and true classics. What’s it mean to you? You decide.

Farah Angsana Show

Fashion, it’s hard to resist. The proliferation of labels, designers as celebrities, Project Runway and reality shows that create design stars has given us all a vocabulary for describing our clothing pedigree. What we wear now has a story of its own, taking the old adage a step further, clothes don’t just make the man, but tell you a lot about the man, as well.

Since couture is out of reach to most, –save the fraction of a percent of the populace concentrated in just a few cosmopolitan hubs– the rest of us, with an eye for style, are given to the gospel of “brand names for less” or achieving a high-end look for bargain basement prices.

Truthfully, I am mostly in the second camp. I’ve never spent an entire month’s rent for my NYC apartment for shoes off the floating shelves at Prada, but I will unabashedly devour high end sample sale finds and live for those 2 times a year when Barney’s fills racks in the auditorium of a Chelsea gymnasium with it’s designer frocks and divine european fabrications.

Despite the fact that I’m a hard news girl, I have always looked at clothes, and fashion, as a wearable art of sorts. As far back as I can remember, going through my mom’s Vogue magazines (and Vogue Pattern’s from which she made many of her pieces when I was little, and she had the time to sew) was a pastime I’d indulge on the floor of our home office. It was then I first marveled at the real life Barbies between the pages. Beverly Johnson was a household favorite, the first black model to make the cover of a major fashion magazine –she is still awe inspiringly beautiful and can make clothing come to life when she wears them.

But, I didn’t stop there. I spent unscheduled hours going through any number of the closets in the house occupied by her clothes (and lest I exclude the shoes) of all kinds, for every occasion: suits, dresses, capes and confections of exotic colors for weddings, baptisms or cocktail parties. Her shoe collections I’d bet money rivals Imelda Marcos’s notorious accumulation.

So detailed and meticulous was her work, even now when I scavenge through her closets, I’m hard-pressed to say which of her pieces are high-end labels (like Escada and Karl Lagerfeld) or a piece she fashioned with her hands and her Singer.

Now, I’m by no means blaming my mother for my love of labels (and the workmanship they represent). But, finely crafted garments that can inspire conversation and make a statement well before you open your mouth to speak, still has the power to test my confidence and reaffirm my esthetic sensibilities.

So, for the first of two times this year, I will pay homage to the designers and consortium of fashion insiders who will set the trends that will speak to us from the pages of magazine editorials, the racks of department stores and the windows at Saks –and will say as much about the clothes as they do about us.

Here’s to the Fall collections we’ll see at Fashion Week.

Could this generation of Haitian students hold the answers to rebuilding Haiti? Mainstream media coverage of Haiti’s disaster, and what should be done in rebuilding, has focused on the usual suspects of talking heads: western academic experts with books on Haiti; government officials past and present; aid organizations with a presence on the island. But, one group missing from the prevailing conversation are the very people who will likely play a large part in the reconstruction of the island nation: Haitian students, both American and those who call Haiti home.

The collective analysis from experts continues to concentrate on the malfeasance of Haiti’s leaders from the past three decades, and the mistakes made by those even further back. But, reexamining Haiti’s past is only part of the equation in moving Haiti forward. As heads of state continue to discuss best practices for aid distribution, these Haitian students –with a first hand perspective– have much to offer in what they feel are key issues in providing better leadership, the role the international community can play post-recovery and in the reconstruction process, and perhaps most importantly what policies can best prevent abuse, corruption and can actually bolster Haiti’s economy, so that it can once again be a player on the global marketplace.

For more in-depth analysis from a variety of experts, please check out:

bit.ly/bcUzsZ

http://bit.ly/cJyZHT

http://bit.ly/arPa0J

While I planned a proper launch of the site, if ever there were a need to tell the stories of real people, the crisis in Haiti and the global response it has generated has predicated a hastened launch. (My new business cards aren’t even made.)

Behind every news story are the people who are affected.  We’ve become accustomed to their voices reduced to short sound bytes. I make no criticism of this, because as a news reporter I know it’s a result of the limitations of the 90-seconds or less given to tell a local news story.

It’s the struggle many reporters who feature people contend with.

REEL NEWS REAL PEOPLE  (RNRP) is not impeded by a daily deadline. There’s no TV schedule time slot to dictate the length of a story. So, it is my mission to spotlight the people whose stories are the news, the events in their lives that are the content that make us take notice. Where the 90-second story leaves off, RNRP keeps going, providing content with context.

As the focus of mainstream media coverage on Haiti has been pervasive, and no doubt compelling, there are however, as many stories on Haiti and the disaster as there are Haitians and Americans who survived it, perished in it and are helping to rescue those from it. And, who have more to share than mainstream media coverage can provide.

I spent a day in the Repatriation Center at Miami International Airport where all American passport holders coming in from Haiti first had to go for processing before they were released, to resume their lives in America. I expected cold, tungsten florescent bulbs lighting a room filled with callous government workers “just doing their job” of taking names, numbers and finger prints, the details that make tracking people possible. I was pleasantly surprised, relieved even, that the processing center was set up in the Consular Lounge, usually reserved for business-class travelers.  The government employees were made up of social workers with the Department of Children and Families –most volunteering their time after their normal working hours– along with military officers acting as liaisons between the activities on the ground in Haiti and those in the room.

What I found was a room filled with amiable  Red Cross workers and patient DCF staff sitting and serving beside volunteer translators and the Haitian-Americans who had finally made their way stateside. (Here, I carefully make the distinction, because the U.S. State Dept. policy thus far is to admit only those who are citizens of the United States, and the far fewer number of Haitians given visas to enter with family members who are citizens.  This, however, hasn’t been a consistent procedure, as I can say, some Haitians close to my family members were not permitted back into the United States within the first week of the crisis, splitting up groups and families between those with U.S. passports and those with residency visas. Those left behind have been left to fend for themselves, finding their own means to make it to the Dominican Republic and there purchasing airline tickets to the United States.)

This is a story close to my heart because my family is from Haiti. Born in the United States, the first in the family on both my parent’s sides, I am both Haitian and Trinidadian (from where my father hails).  My earliest memories in life are, however of Haiti, as I spent nearly a year of my early childhood living with my great aunts, uncles and cousins in the Port-au-Prince suburb of Delmas. I started kindergarten in the late-’70’s on Long Island speaking only French, and having to learn english. The commitment to keep pursuing the stories on Haiti is both personal and professional. My reporting style has always been such to, “go back and follow up.”

So, as the coverage of a devastated Haiti peters out, it’s my goal to keep the stories coming.

Please share your thoughts on what you hear and see from the people featured on REEL NEWS REAL PEOPLE.

Gratefully,

Stacey

photo: courtesy of Associated Press

Many feel a call to volunteer as the images of catastrophe continue to make their way off the island. Here is what one experienced emergency paramedic lived in the week of the aftermath.

This photo is courtesy of the Associated Press of Doctors Without Borders.

Nearly 45,000 Americans lived in Haiti, until the catastrophic earthquake two weeks ago. And, Haitian-Americans are still being flown home, however, not always by choice. The U.S. State Dept. implemented an evacuation of all U.S. passport holders. The many who are relieved to end their ordeal, coming home, first means being repatriated. These are some first thoughts when they touched down stateside, 11 days after the earthquake.

You never know who in your city, town or neck-of-the-woods lives and breathes extraordinary talent. That’s what I discovered as a reporter in Gainesville, Florida.

Sent out to get :30 seconds of video on the 90^th birthday of a dancer and choreographer at the then Santa Fe Community College, I soon realized a living legend working and teaching in our midst. Even with a modest appreciation of ballet, –never mind having once been a little girl taking ballet, in awe of prima ballerinas— a small scratch beneath the surface, it was clear that Alberto Alonso’s contribution to the art of dance merits more than a quick birthday announcement on local t.v. news.

His is a story of courage, passion and inspiration.

When I met the ballet master, it was the eve of his 90^th birthday, he was instructing a master class, along with his wife Sonia Calero. His physique and energy rivaled any man more than half his age.

The ballet master was born in Havana, Cuba in 1917. If you have ever seen the formidable American Ballet Theater dance company perform at Lincoln Center in NYC, you have experienced the influence of Alonso. With his brother Fernando and sister-in-law Alicia, Alberto created the Cuban style of classic ballet, that endures today.

Defecting from Cuba, Alberto graced premiere stages around the world from Monte Carlo to the Bolshoi in Russia. The themes of his pieces illuminated his desire and need for freedom. His illustrious career even graced the silver screen, alongside the venerable Fred Astaire.

In 1993, he was granted political asylum in the United States. Though in his 70’s he became Artist-in-Residence at what is now Santa Fe College, where he taught master classes in classic ballet. Alberto died on December 31, 2007 in Gainesville.

His life, love and struggle for freedom are documented, with amazing archive footage, in the film, “Dance of My Heart: The Life and Career of Alberto Alonso.”

This piece, that aired on WCJB, is the 1^st place winner of a Society of Professional Journalists award for Feature Reporting.

To learn more visit:

http://www.danzaballet.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=1715

http://www.efluxmedia.com/news_Cuban_Ballet_Choreographer_Alberto_Alonso_Dies_at_90_12494.html

http://www.cubatravelusa.com/ballet_cuba.htm

This is the first part of a series of reports following the trials of a homeless family with four children and their parents. It is a portrait of what it looks like to be without home, hearth and the simple conveniences that one enjoys with a permanent roof over one’s head.

It is a 360-degree look at homelessness, from what led the Castellio family into their predicament, as they navigate the social services systems and housing issues, to what it took them to resolve their problems as the lives and well-being of their children and their marriage hung in the balance.

Like many families who find themselves losing their homes, the Castellio’s faced the foreclosure of the home they were renting. In hopes of making a better life in a different state they were lured by the promise of a job in Texas, only to find it did not exist. Returning to Gainesville they had run through their savings and were starting over.

Living paycheck-to-paycheck is the reality for most Americans. National statistics show that the average American is two paychecks away from becoming homeless.

How easy is it for you to find yourself homeless?

After a second hearing, AvMed again denied the Hamilton’s the money to pay for craniosacral therapy for Mariah. However, following the broadcast of this third follow up story, a local doctor trained in the therapy offered his services to Mariah for free. And to assist with their mounting medical bills, another viewer offered to assist the Hamilton’s with a grant application that would cover Mariah because she is under 16 years of age.

View Part 1 of Story
View Part 2 of Story